Hello Council 11 Members,

As a San Francisco Flight Attendant and fellow flying partner in whom you have placed your confidence, it is with this full knowledge I begin my term of service as your Local Council President.  For those of you who may not know me or know about me, I am Kaitlin White.  I began my career as a Flight Attendant in December of 2000 and I have been based in EWR, DEN and, most recently, SFO since July 2014.   I began my Union Career in 2004 and have worked as a Committee Member, locally and at the MEC level, focused on Reserve and Scheduling issues.  I am eager to begin the work of serving as your new Local Council President and excited about the opportunity to meet each one of you in the domicile or at one of the meetings we will be setting up in order to provide you with as much information as possible about the Tentative Agreement.

As our first official order of business, I join the newly elected officers of Council 11 in expressing appreciation on behalf of the Membership of Council 11 to the previous Officers of Council 11 – Chris Black, Steve Murzi, and Sharon Benjamin Caldwell – for their dedicated service to each of us and our Union.  Each of these respected Union representatives have dedicated the majority of their respective careers in helping build all of us up and in enforcing the Contract under which we all work. Their dedication to our Union is respected and admired.  Please join us in wishing each of them well in their future endeavors.

It’s a very exciting time for our profession and our Union’s history!   I trust that most of you are aware that our recently achieved agreement with the company has been accepted and approved as a Tentative Agreement by the CAL, CMI, and UAL MECs.  The Joint Master Executive Council stands behind the Tentative Agreement and unanimously approved the Tentative Agreement be sent to the Membership for ratification.  I was privileged to be in attendance at the meeting to review the agreement and to stand in solidarity with the combined leadership of our Union behind the decision to send the agreement to the Membership for a ratification vote.

In the coming weeks, our highest priority will be communicating regularly with you and passing along information on the upcoming dates of the worldwide roadshows.  You should expect to see your newly elected Local Council Officers, along with a number of our dedicated Negotiations Support Activists, available in the domicile daily starting today through the close of the vote on Friday, August 12, 2016.  We welcome you to stop by with any questions and strongly encourage you to attend at least one roadshow.   This Contract has been a long time coming and it is critical that we educate ourselves on the entire Contract, not just sections of it.   Avoid rumor and speculation that starts on the jumpseat.  Get your questions answered, get the facts and most importantly, vote. This is a historic time for all United Airlines Flight Attendants and I look forward to working together with the newly elected officers in Council 11 as we build our future together.   

The Joint Negotiations Committee is working hard to get the Contract language finalized and to make it available for you to view.   The Roadshow schedule is also being finalized.  We anticipate the roadshow in SFO will be held towards the end of July.  As soon as this information is available it will be sent out to you in a newsletter, posted in the domicile on the AFA Board and in social media.  As much as we look forward to seeing you at a local roadshow, we recognize that’s not always possible.  Know that you are welcome to attend any roadshow across the system to get your questions answered.

The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy and we look forward to the challenges this point in our history presents.  Most importantly, we look forward to seeing all of you soon.

In Solidarity,

Kaitlin White, President
San Francisco, Council 11